Did the CIA seek to hypnotize an assassin to kill Fidel Castro?

In May 1963, deputy director Richard Helms asked Angleton, the legendary chief of the agency’s Counterintelligence Staff, to assess the problem of Cuba for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Angleton wrote a 16-page working paper, “Cuban Control and Action Capabilities” that was so sensitive it would remain classified for the next 35 years.

Angleton’s conclusions were stark. Castro’s minions were marching into Latin America aided and abetted by their masters in Moscow, he said.

“In both internal and external activities the guiding hand of the Soviet Bloc, particularly the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Communist China was evident to varying degrees,” Angleton wrote. “Many aspects of the Cuban [security] programs could not have been carried out without external support in terms of funds, experience and expert training.”

In fact Communist China had little influence on Castro’s Cuba. The cultural differences between the two countries were too vast; Angleton didn’t care. The international communist conspiracy was, in his conspiratorial mind, was monolithic.

After Helms distributed the memo to rest of the U.S. government, Angleton turned to possible solutions.

Like Helms, Angleton considered assassination, but with a creative twist. Since all of the many agency’s attempts to kill the Cuban leader by conventional methods (poison, bazooka attack) had failed, Angleton proposed a radically different approach: hypnotizing an unwitting person who would kill on command. Angleton asked tthe CIA’s ablest scientists to look into it.

Mind Control in Mexico City

Fidel Castro, tormenter of empire and target of CIA assassins.

“Castro was naturally our discussion point,” an unnamed CIA man involved in the CIA’s mind-control program told John Marks, a former State Department officer who wrote The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, a good book about the agency’s mind control program in the 1950s and 1960s.. “Could you get somebody gung-ho enough that they would go in and get him?”

The concept of mind control had been popularized by novelist Richard Condon in his 1959 best-seller The Manchurian Candidate, in which the Chinese communists capture a U.S. serviceman, subject him to mind control techniques, and program him to assassinate the President of the United States. Having done research on the CIA’s mind control programs, Condon knew that the agency was serious about developing the capability to manipulate someone into killing.

That concept had long intrigued the CIA leadership.

“Caught in the muck and frustration of ordinary spywork, [they] hoped for a miracle tool,” Marks wrote in his book, which was based on declassified CIA records. “Faced with liars and deceivers, they longed for a truth drug. Surrounded by people who knew too much, they sought a way to create amnesia. They dreamed of finding means to make unwilling people carry out specific tasks, such as stealing documents, provoking a fight, killing someone, or otherwise committing an antisocial act.” [ii]

This wasn’t science fiction or a conspiracy theorist’s fantasy.

Angleton’s staff had been working with the agency’s Technical Services Staff since 1960 to conduct operational experiments in hypnosis, which one counterintelligence official wrote, could provide a “potential breakthrough in clandestine technology.” The code name for the the program was Artichoke.

Artichoke had three goals: The first was to induce hypnosis very rapidly in unwitting subjects. The second was to create durable amnesia. The third was to implant durable and operationally useful post-hypnotic suggestions, to make a personal responsive to commands. These were serious exercises in behavioral control that needed to be tested. The Technical Services Staff would do the laboratory research, while the Counterintelligence Staff was in charge of what it called “field experimentation.”

In October 1960 the CIA scientists paid $9,000 to an outside consultant to develop a way of quickly hypnotizing an unwitting subject. John Gittinger, a psychologist who worked with Angelton, said that the process consisted of surprising “somebody sitting in a chair, putting your hands on his forehead, and telling the guy to go to sleep.” The method worked “fantastically” on certain people, including some on whom no other technique was effective. But it didn’t work at all on others. “It wasn’t that predictable,” Gittinger said.

In July 1963, Angleton’s staff asked the CIA station in Mexico City to find a suitable candidate for a rapid induction experiment. Angleton had been friends with Mexico City station chief Win Scott since World War II, and could count on him for help.

A counterintelligence officer flew to Mexico City, as did a hypnosis consultant from California. The CIA men brought one of its agents to a motel room on a pretext.

“I puffed him up with his importance,” the CIA source told Marks. “I said the bosses wanted to see him and of course give him more money.”

Waiting in an adjoining room was the hypnosis consultant. At a prearranged time, the two case officers gently grabbed hold of the agent and tipped his chair over until the back was touching the floor. The consultant was supposed to rush in at that precise moment and apply the technique. Nothing happened. The consultant froze, unable to do the deed.

“You can imagine what we had to do to cover-up,” said the official who was literally left holding the agent. “We explained we had heard a noise, got excited, and tipped him down to protect him. He was so grubby for money he would have believed any excuse.”

In the end, Angleton concluded there were more reliable ways to kill people than hypnotizing an assassin, according to Marks.

Mind Control and Lee Oswald

Some JFK authors say that Lee Harvey Oswald became involved in a CIA mind control program in 1963.

There’s no doubt Lee Harvey Oswald was of deep interest to Angleton’s staff from 1959 to 1963. And there’s little doubt Oswald went to Mexico City in October 1963 where he came to the attention of Angleton’s people.

But there’s no evidence that Oswald was of interest to the people running Operation Artichoke.

What’s indisputable is that the CIA considered using mind-control techniques to assassinate perceived enemies of United States. It was Angleton’s idea.

Comes a Detailed Investigation of

CIA operations in Late 1963

In JFK & CIA; The Secret Assassination Files, Jefferson Morley uses on the record interviews of retired CIA officers and thousands of pages of declassified documents to sketch a granular account of the the inner working of the clandestine service on the eve of JFK’s assassination.

There is no theory here, only the facts about how certain named CIA officers monitored and manipulated the defector Lee Oswald as he made his way to Dallas.

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Jeff I think your a little off in your timing Operation Artichoke was started under Morse Alan and Frank Wisner.Project was outlined in a memo dated January 1952 that stated, “Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature http://www.paperlessarchives.com/FreeTitles/ARTICHOKECIAFiles.pdf Colonal Boris Pash did a lot of recruting of mind control Scientist in both Germany and Japanese Unit 731 – Nightmare in Manchuria

“In October 1960 the CIA paid $9,000 to an outside consultant to develop a way of quickly hypnotizing an unwitting subject. John Gittinger, a psychologist who worked with Angelton, ”

$9,000? Sounds like a small, rouge , keystone cops operation – But forty-four American colleges & universities, 15 research foundations & pharmaceutical companies including Sandoz (now Novartis) and Eli Lilly and Company, 12 hospitals and three prisons are known to have participated in MKUltra. Donald Cameron alone was paid $69,000 to carry out MKUltra experiments:

Don’t forget, that’s an off-the-books payment that the IRS would never be told about. Also, it’s the equivalent of at least $50,000 in today’s money. Factor in the various taxes and deductions that wouldn’t be made, we’re talking a sum equivalent to a net salary i the $70-80K range.

The U.S. Army got interested in LSD for interrogation purposes in 1950. After May, 1956, until 1975, the U.S. Army Intelligence and the U.S. Chemical Corps “experimented with hallucinogenic drugs.” The CIA and Army spent $26,501,446 “testing” LSD, code name EA 1729, along with other chemical agents. Contracts went out to forty-eight different institutions for testing. The CIA was part of these projects. They concealed their participation by contracting to various colleges, hospitals, prisons, mental hospitals, and private foundations. WE allso know LSD and other chemical agents where sent to LHO Atsugi Base in Japan

There is a lot of historical evidence that such mind control was discovered fairly far back in history, long before any “psychological theorizing” came about.

Shamanism, and even the priesthoods of religions still popular, understood and practiced controlling human behavior.

The great cathedral builders understood how the light and color cast by stained glass windows created a state of awe. Monotone patterned speaking, was found to put people into strange suggestive states.

I’ve read of cults in Bavaria who took advantage of the natural psychopaths in villages who mistreated their young, to have found that making their children into literal “mind-slaves” with such techniques as putting one foot of an infant in boiling water, and the other in ice water would cause a splintering of the personality.

Bear in mind, none of this was understood on an intellectual level, it was all built upon superstition and “magic rites” and such.\\][//

H.P. Albarelli Jr the reason i refer to Col Pash is because he has palm prints all over LHO and White Russian community in Texas. We can start with Pash’s protege and Japanese interpreter Lt. Robert Royster who after leaving Army intelligence became Father Dimitri in Pash’s Fathers Orthadox Church. Father Dimitri Baptised both of Oswalds Children in Dallas

“Palm prints” all over Oswald?!?! I would have to disagree with that.Pash spent a fair amount of time in France around the time of the assassination.You state that Pash recruited Japanese scientists and that is simply not true. He was in Europe with the Alsos Project but not Japan. I think you confuse various people at Fort Detrick and their activities with Pash. Lastly, Ishi was never a consultant to the U.S. government: that has been alleged but never backed by any evidence.

Oswald arrived in Mexico City on September 27, 1963. His photo and signature in the visa application at the Cuban consulate is the conclusive quantum of proof against the hypothesis that the applicant was an impostor, although it’s clear Oswald was impersonated later on phone calls in Mexico City.On Sunday morning November 24, 1963, at Captain Will Fritz’s Office, Oswald admitted: “I went to the Mexican Embassy to try to get this permission to go to Russia by way of Cuba (…) I went to the Mexican Consulate in Mexico City. I went to the Russian Embassy to go to Russia by way of Cuba.” Just after his arrest, he had admitted “some trouble with police in New Orleans for passing out pro-Castro literature,” and also “I was secretary of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee [FPCC] in New Orleans a few months ago,” and even “I support the Castro revolution.”Thus, he was not person of interest regarding Operation Artichoke, but Lee at pro Castro work in New Orleans and leftist Harvey in Mexico City have no better explanation than Oswald as agent of the CIA-FBI joint operation against FPCC [known as the John Tilton (CIA) – Lambert Anderson (FBI) Operation], branded by John Newman as “CI/OPS-inspired.”

“Like Helms, Angleton considered assassination, but with a creative twist. Since all of the many agency’s attempts to kill the Cuban leader by conventional methods (poison, bazooka attack) had failed, Angleton proposed a radically different approach: hypnotizing an unwitting person who would kill on command. Angleton asked the CIA’s ablest scientists to look into it.”

Of course this would bring us to the point of a discussion of MKUltra, and it’s spawns. This is a topic I have looked into quite a bit. Dr Ewing Cameron is shown to be one of the greatest “Mad Scientists” outside of the realm of horror film fiction. The fact that this psycho was the head of the World Psychiatric Association, is some indication of the psychopathic nature of much of mainstream science and technology. It gives credence to the notion that maniacs run the world.\\][//

Willy Whitten, I too have studied this closely, specifically the Human Ecology Fund and Cornell University where MKUltra experiments were implemented on vets from the Korean war enrolled at Cornell under the GI Bill. As has been named here in the past, the figurehead of the HEF providing perceived legitimacy to an illegitimate project was Adolf Berle, senior statesman and advisor to presidents. At the time, his wife, Beatrice Bishop Berle was establishing a highly successful career in social science research at Columbia University, another institution alleged to have been involved in the MKUltra experiments; it is reasonable to suggest that Youth House represented a petri dish for research, and in fact Oswald’s caseworker, Evelyn Siegel was a graduate of Columbia in social work. The timing also suggests the department was not so large that Siegel and Bishop Berle wouldn’t have known one another professionally. One with access to Columbia records could confirm.

I am asserting that the ethos of the early 1950’s in the field of mental health and social sciences was running amok, influenced by the influx of Nazi scientists who shared with some of their American colleagues strongly held views of eugenics and sense of superiority over their subjects.

Does anyone know precisely the length of time required to programme a troubled young adolescent for a lifetime of unwitting subservience or more sinister mind control? A month?

You ask, “Does anyone know precisely the length of time required to programme a troubled young adolescent for a lifetime of unwitting subservience or more sinister mind control? A month?”

It would very between individuals. All studies on simple hypnosis reveal that there are degrees of susceptibility to suggestion from one subject to the next. Adding drugs and “psychic Jamming” to the program makes it likely to be significantly more successful in some cases, but also possibly lethal in some cases. The extraordinary frequency of electroshock “therapy” also adds to the dangerous mix of techniques these maniacs were experimenting with. All of this with “creative” cocktails of amphetamines, sedatives, and psychotropics leads into the corridors of Hell for any suffering these insane abuses.

A long answer for a simple question, I know, but the bottom line is there is no simple answer to the question.\\][//

Thanks Willy Whitten. The pure happenstance that Marguerite moved her troubled son, precisely as he entered his teens, from a relatively speaking bucolic environment to NYC strikes me as significant. She may have hoped his older brother could influence him, or might she have been induced to make the move; are there facts not yet considered about that period of Oswald’s life. I respect you are not drawn to speculation, but as a layperson I don’t think it is unreasonable to at least turn the stone that she was induced to make the move. An obstacle in the theory is if she had been manipulated to bring Lee to NY, why wait until he was picked up for truancy to ‘enroll’ him at Youth House? Could it have been pure coincidence that Oswald was placed in conditions at a perfect age that may well have exposed him to a MKU related operation?

“Could it have been pure coincidence that Oswald was placed in conditions at a perfect age that may well have exposed him to a MKU related operation?”~leslie sharp

While it is so that the subjects for such MK manipulations are very often drawn from prison, or juvenile detention; Charley Manson being a key example, I would be cautious in seeing Oswald as fitting the profile.

What I do see in Oswald’s profile, is a candidate for a double agent. He is intelligent, but not risk adverse. He is clever, but not especially wise. He has aspects to his personality that seem apt to manipulation when combined forces of “authority” are brought to bear. In all he seems to retain a will of his own despite these things when given a pause for reflection on his part.My assessment is that Oswald was indeed recruited as a double agent. That is a personal opinion nothing further, but I hold to that, and have for many years.\\][//

Willy Whitten, I hope we’re clear; I wasn’t arguing that Oswald was programmed to assassinate. I think he was trained to respond to direction and redirection while at the same time programmed to believe he enjoyed total sovereignty and control over his life. The latter is heady wine and would appeal to a disenfranchised adolescent, the former indicates he had “become as an ant,” a phrase attributable to Adolph Berle/Human Ecology Fund. This may or may not align with your personal theory that Oswald came to serve as a double agent.

Oswald is alleged to have become an avowed Marxist at age 13, 3 days after leaving Youth House having been handed a pamphlet, and yet just 3 years later he tried to join with defenders of democracy around the world, the US Marines. Has Jean Davison in particular made sense of this contradiction in her book “Oswald’s Game?”

My understanding is that psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts and those that study the social sciences – in my view tantamount to witchcraft spun off from the studies of Edward Bernays and his relative Sigmund Freud – are trained to identify predominate attributes in the ‘subject’ (a massive objectification if one were to think about it seriously), and the earlier the better.

Everything about Oswald’s defection suggests to me he was being manipulated and handled. A seldom discussed detail, one which to most people will seem irrelevant: Billy Joe Lord, who sailed from New Orleans on the SS Marion Lykes with Oswald along with Army Col. Geo. Church and his wife, was from Midland, TX and graduated high school at the same time, from the same school as a kid shown in a photograph taken some years later sitting beside George deMohrenschildt along with his terrior puppy on a curb in front of an apartment complex in Oak Lawn, Dallas. I happen to recognize the apartment building having lived in the neighborhood for several years. One cannot make this ‘stuff’ up.

Oswald spent 42 days isolated in the Asugi Brig, LHO spent 19 days in hospital for shooting himself in the arm with a derringer and between the two court-martials, while Oswald was on field duty in the Philippines. … a Private Martin Schrand was shot and killed while on guard duty. it was ruled suicide but I’m thinking a trial run.

Operation Paperclip was the revolving door operated by John J McCloy and Allan Dulles that transferred Nazi war criminals into the United States. If the Nazi war criminals were too radio active they would be funneled through South America to cool down then to Mexico to get a new identity and then on to the United States.

A lot of people — even experts — thought, after the RFK assassination, that Sirhan Sirhan behaved as though he had been hypnotized. Granted, the forensic evidence was such that he had not fired the fatal shots, but he might still have been hypnotized into doing things that made him a patsy.

There is actually no definitive proof that Lee Oswald went to Mexico City in the Fall of 1963. He denied going there during his interrogation with the Dallas authorities the two days he lived after JFK’s murder & J Edgar Hoover stated to LBJ after the assassination that the photos and audio recordings of “Oswald” in Mexico City did not match with the real Oswald.

McFarlands were on same bus LHO used to go too Mexico Cityhttp://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/mcfarland.htm A. We saw no document, but he said he was the secretary of the New Orleans branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Organization. and that he was on his way to Cuba to see Castro GC- We need too know more about Osbourn who sat next to LHO on bus.

Yes, there is a conclusive proof: Oswald’s visa application provided by the Cuban authorities, which contains his photo and signature, both deemed authentic by forensic expertise.At the Cuban consulate in Mexico City, five eyewitnesses (the incoming —Alfredo Mirabal— and outgoing —Eusebio Azcue— consuls, the Mexican employee Sylvia Tirado de Duran, the commercial attache Guillermo Ruiz and his assistant Antonio Garcia) saw an American asking for visa on Friday, September 27, 1963. Only one (Azcue) testified that the Oswald who broke the news on November 22 was not the Oswald who had visited the consulate on September 27.

“Yes, there is a conclusive proof: Oswald’s visa application provided by the Cuban authorities, which contains his photo and signature, both deemed authentic by forensic expertise.”~Arnaldo M. Fernandez

Azcue was a notorious liar and a rabid alcoholic who ‘remembered’ the person was not Oswald about 10 years after the visit in question. Arnaldo is correct; there are multiple witnesses who saw Oswald in Mexico City, many who have not yet stepped forward.

When you consider that there are actually photos of a man in Mexico City that was initially thought to be Lee Oswald by our own intelligence services – yet was clearly not Oswald – if Oswald was really in Mexico City – where is one photo proving it – yet there are photos of someone apparently impersonating him. What does that really mean?

Yes – you have witnesses who say they saw Oswald in Mexico City & a copy of his signature at the embassy. Could the witnesses have been wrong or intimidated and the signature forged?

We must not forget that the actual order form for the Mannlicher-Carcano identified as Oswald’s signature is missing from the National Archives – only a copy exists.Handwriting experts from the HSCA determined that Oswald’s Russian diary was not “historically accurate”. There is also strong evidence that someone impersonated Oswald at a firing range in the weeks leading up to the assassination. J. Edgar Hoover indicated that someone was impersonating Oswald in June 1960 while Oswald was in the Soviet Union. Hoover wrote “there is a possibility that an impostor is using Oswald’s birth certificate”.

This case is full of possibilities that evidence implicating Oswald was tampered with & it is a possibility with Oswald in Mexico City without definitive audio & photographic documentation.

If you cannot accept that Lee Oswald went to Mexico City I submit that you cannot be a serious researcher. If you believe that J. Edgar Hoover was responsible for the Cold War you have no understanding of the FBI nor Hoover’s limited ability to shape American policy outside of law enforcement. Teaching High School history and knowing two retired FBI agents doesn’t make you an expert in the FBI, anymore than my personal relationship with one of the founders of the FBI Acadamy in Quantico makes me an expert in FBI tactics or the role of J.Edgar Hoover in the formulation of U.S. Cold War policy. I always thought that George Kennan’s “X” article in “Foreign Affairs” based on the 1946 communication set the stage for American policy at the start of the Cold War-despite the thesis of your book Hoover had nothing to do with that policy, nor with the policy of “containment” which was the principle strategy of the U.S. and NATO during the Cold War. You seem devoid of knowledge of Truman’s “Wise Men” who guided American international relations during the last half of the 1940s; Hoover had no place in that group and had no influence on their recommendations which formed the basis of this country’s relationship with Communism and the Soviet Union until the advent of perestroika .

If you cannot accept that Lee Oswald went to Mexico City I submit that you cannot be a serious researcher.If you believe that J. Edgar Hoover was responsible for the Cold War you have no understanding of the FBI nor Hoover’s limited ability to shape American policy outside of law enforcement.”~Photon

What pray tell Her Doktor does the dispute of whether Oswald went to Mexico City have to do with J. Edgar Hoover having no influence over policy during the Cold War?This part about the FBI Director is dubious in itself, as he was one of the leading parties responsible for the hysteria over Communism gripping the US at the time.\\][//

Wow – I didn’t realize that earning a Master’s Degree (thesis on J. Edgar Hoover) in US History, teaching US History as an adjunct professor, teaching Advanced Placement US History – a college course in HS, & grading thousands of AP US exams for the College Board disqualifies me from being knowledgeable about US History.

As for J. Edgar Hoover – a little history lesson. He was head of the FBI for nearly 50 years – he saw ten presidents come & go during his time in the Justice Department.He was mainly responsible for the Palmer Raids which rounded up suspected communists in 1919-20. He was responsible for the Soviet Ark in 1920 which rounded up over 240 communists who were sent back to Russia. Hoover compiled a 500 page report & sat beside Sec. of State Charles Evans Hughes in 1924 as Hughes argued against recognizing the Soviet Union. He had a great deal of influence behind the scenes from 1919-1972 – more than we will ever know. In my book I argue that Hoover was the Father of the Cold War because of his anti-communist mindset & actions long before the end of WW2 – I stand by that argument because it is documented.

It is possible that Lee Oswald was in Mexico City but I stand by the argument that the evidence is not definitive. An imposter was identified as Lee Oswald & was photographed in Mexico City & the real Oswald was not & Oswald had been impersonated numerous times in the past & its possible that this happened in Mexico City.

If you believe that the opinions of Hoover had any influence on the “Wise Men” who guided American foreign policy in the years after World War II I question your scholarship, Masters or not. Is your book your thesis? Do you even mention Kennan in your book? He was the true Father of the Cold War, as any serious researcher of the era could tell you( ( although he despised the term). Having studied the period with scholars who participated in the events I can assure you that the majority of the architects of the Truman-era Cold War policy despised Hoover. The only reason Roosevelt kept him on was because of his assistance in monitoring the America First crowd.

“I can assure you that the majority of the architects of the Truman-era Cold War policy despised Hoover. The only reason Roosevelt kept him on was because of his assistance in monitoring the America First crowd.”~Photon

Photon can assure us…Lol

His thesis on Hoover is flawed. Hoover wasn’t “despised” he was FEARED. Everyone knew that Hoover had the “goods” on anyone he needed to manipulate.That this was at least a psychological influence on the thinking of those conducting the Cold War is simply undeniable.\\][//

Exactly what goods did Hoover have on Truman’s foreign policy team?Exactly which member of the ” Wise Men” could be intimidated by Hoover-or anybody else for that matter? How about some facts- those men were as boring as buttermilk .Mr. Kiel makes the claim that Hoover was a prime mover in American policy during the Cold War. Prove it.

R. Andrew Kiel– with all your stated credentials, you should be aware that the bulk of the 23 photographs taken of the “mystery man” coming and going from the Soviet embassy, that you claim was an Oswald imposter, were taken on dates after Oswald had departed Mexico.

I don’t think Kennan had much to do with the security program imposed on the U.S. civil service or with the vendetta against homosexuals. Hoover, on the other hand, very much did. And he was so powerful in pushing this that even an ally like Britain was forced to go along (see the treatment of Turing).

Pg. 13:Boggs:…I don’t even like this being taken down.Dulles: Yes. I think this record should be destroyed. Do you think we need a record of all this?A: I don’t, except that we said we would have records of all the meetings and so we called in the reporter in the normal way. If you think that what we have said here should not be recorded, we can have it done that way. Of course it might….Dulles: I’m just thinking of sending around copies and so forth. The only copies of this record should be kept right here.Boggs: I would hope that none of these records are circulated to anybody.A: I hope so too.Rankin: We also give them to the commissioners. Now if you don’t want them, these are the only ones who get them but Sides himself: off the record.\\][//

Photon, you still have not explained why the question of Hoover’s influence over for foreign policy has bearing on whether Oswald was in Mexico City or not.

It seems utterly irrelevant to the question. So why don’t you answer why Oswald went to Mexico?What did he hope to accomplish? Why were other people there posing as Oswald, who were caught on audio tape recordings and photographs?\\][//

Photon, read this January 27, 1964 transcript of Warren Commission executive session. Almost half of the dialog at this meeting is dedicated to whether or not to approach Hoover on the matter of whether Oswald was an agent on behalf of FBI. The concern was whether he would be insulted depending on which tact they might employ to inquire of him. At times the discussion seems almost like something out of Kafka. One can almost detect the trembling in their voices regarding Hoover.We also have Dulles there saying that the CIA had no charter for this type of operation inside the US. Of course we know the history of how frequently this charter was and is abused with consistency.Inside jokes going round the table here? Winks and nods?At any rate all concerned in this meeting knew the issue had to be resolved to the negative. It was essential to the finding of Oswald as a “lone nut”.

Hoover was apparently fraught with human traits that were considered frailties at the time, and he was personally, deeply indebted and in debt in the most real meaning of the term to Clint Murchison, Sid Richardson and the “boys from Texas.” These men may have had raw, unpolished political skills but they had voracious goals to expand their already enormous wealth; so at the end of the day does anyone wonder if the tail was wagging the dog? Keenan, et al were sophisticated thinkers inspired by ideology, but as economies became more and more reliant on petroleum does anyone believe that the Cold War was all about good vs. evil? These cowboys not only had access, they could call in Hoover’s debts at the drop of a hat.

Citizens United defines the success of “America First.” This is an issue of the mind-set of greed, and communism is beginning to look benign in comparison.

Wait a minute Photon, did you read this document;Warren Commission Executive Session of 22 Jan 1964?

This document makes it clear that the agenda of the Warren Commission was not to find the truth in the matter of the assassination of JFK, but to merely rubberstamp the FBI assertion that Oswald was the lone gunman.

Read the last page. You’re a fly on the wall witnessing the cover-up of the crime of the century:

Boggs: “This closes the case, you see. Don’t you see?”

Dulles: “Yes, I see that.”

Rankin: “They found their man. There is nothing more to do. The Commission supports their conclusions, and we can all go home and that’s the end of it.”_________________________________From that day forward they knew they were on board for “closing doors, not opening new ones” as it was put by one of them at one point. Leads that didn’t incriminate Oswald as the killer were to be ignored and covered up.

That this is criminal-bias is clear, and all of these people involved in this report are liable as ‘Accessories After The Fact’.\\][//

Good post, Arnaldo. I would add the question: If Oswald did not go to Mexico why did he apply for a tourist visa to travel to Mexico about 10 days before? In addition to the consulate staff, there were numerous people who witnessed Oswald moving about Mexico City.

An adjunct to Mind Control of Individuals, which is the task of MKUltra, there is The Strategy of Tension:

“The strategy of tension forms part of what is called “psychological warfare” or PSYWAR. As the term indicates, this form of warfare does not attack human bodies, tanks, planes, ships, satellites, and houses in order to destroy them, but human psyches, human minds. Leaving aside the fact that philosophers, psychologists, neurologists, and theologians have never been able fully to agree on exactly what “the mind” is, we can for our purposes here define it simply as our human ability to think and feel. If a group can get access to our thinking and our feeling without our noticing, it can exercise great power over us. Once we notice that our psyches are being manipulated through psychological warfare, thetechnique loses some of its effect.”~Daniele Ganserhttp://www.journalof911studies.com/resources/2014GanserVol39May.pdf

As noted elsewhere on this site: CIA TSD had nothing to do with ARTICHOKE. The project was operated by another CIA division. Also the project’s primary aims are misstated in the above article. ARTICHOKE was not replaced by MK/ULTRA and indeed was operated past the shuttering of MK/ULTRA. The only reason we know that LSD was kept at Atsugi is a CIA memo dated Nov. 1953, but ARTICHOKE teams were dispatched to Japan in 1956-57 and later. There is no evidence that Oswald was an ARTICHOKE or MK/ULTRA subject.Lastly, Angelton’s people had been working with Gottleib’s mind alteration staff since early 1953, not 1960.

H.P. Albarelli Jr. You may feel there is no evidance but LHO fills the criteria of a ARTICHOKE project of sending an agent far behind enemy lines and then returning not remembering what his mission was. The fact that Gottleib’s group was called on carpet Nov 29 1963 gives some credence that Oswald was the unwitting guinea pigs they where talking about.

Gerald- Pure speculation, I feel. Fulfilling the so-called criteria are also about 250,000 plus other servicemen at the time [in Far East alone]. Gottleib’s “group” was never “called on the carpet” in 1963 or at any other time. The IG’s report was fine cover for minor, pesky concerns. Speculation is fine, but labeling it as such is important. Evidence, for me, works far better.I guess Oswald dubbed himself a “patsy” because he began to partially remember…

H.P. Albarelli Jr. I sujest you read FOIA reporthttp://www.paperlessarchives.com/FreeTitles/ARTICHOKECIAFiles.pdfOf the 250,000 service men in far east there was only one fake defector OSWALD. The IG report in Aug 1963 called for new protocol be established on UNWITTING Guiniepigs There was only one reason to call Gottleib’s group 4 days after JFK Funeral infront of Deputy Director CIA was Oswald.

Again speculation with nothing to support it, nothing whatsoever. The ARTICHOKE files you refer me to are terribly incomplete. I suggest you read my book on Frank Olson’s death in order to understand the true nature of ARTICHOKE. I’m amazed you don’t understand the dog-and-pony show nature of the 1963 IG report– from which nothing occurred change-wise. Gottleib’s group called before the DCI: a pipe dream drawn from a tabloid.Bits and pieces of erroneous info do not amount to any semblance of history.

Photon – I credit George Kennan in my book as the man who initiates the policy of containment & make reference to himfurther(P.’s 64 & 402).

However – the mistrust of the Soviets & communism did not begin with George Kennan & the “Long Telegram” in 1946. Kennanhad been stationed in Latvia in 1931 & worked in Moscow in 1933 when the FDR administration first recognized the Soviet Union. Kennan began his mistrust long after Hoover did in 1919.

As I stated in a previous post – J. Edgar Hoover had written a report in 1924 which Sec. of State Charles Evans Hughes used to argue against recognition of the Soviet Union – this after the Palmer Raids & the Soviet Ark 1919-21. How can one argue he had no influence over foreign policy – & well before Kennan’s “Long Telegram”.

Did the opinions of Hoover affect the “Wise Men” & could Hoover have intimidated these powerful men?

Emanuel Celler – Hoover’s friend of forty years & Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee stated “Hoover had tremendous power, power of surveillance power of control over the lives of every man in the nation. He had a dossier on every member of Congress”

Richard Nixon in 1973 “Hoover performed. He would have fought…He would have scared a few people. He would have scared them to death. He had a file on everybody”.

Dean Rusk “Our experiences with J. Edgar Hoover taught us that … he had become so institutionalized that he was virtually untouchable. No one exercising power should be untouchable in our government”

In 1919 Hoover wrote “Communism was the most evil monstrous conspiracy against man since time began.” The same year as Kennan’s “Telegram”. Hoover wrote that “he has tagged 12,000 communists & is ready to seize them in case of war with Russia”.In 1950 Richard Nixon in a speech after prosecuting Alger Hiss – “Mr. Hoover recognized the communist threat long before other top officialsrecognized its existence.”

Finally in May 1968 – 4 years before he died – forty years after being named head of the BOI/FBI – Hoover said to members of Congress the Communist Party sought to unite civil rights & antiwar protests “to create one massive movement which they hope will ultimately change our government’s policies, both foreign & domestic”. What can of power did Hoover have over powerful people & foreign policy?

Photon – you say none – I have answered your questions as best I can – from Don Adams being a buff, to my expertise as a researcher, to my arguments about Hoover’s influence on the Cold War, & definitive proof of Oswald in Mexico City. Let the other readers chime in – you make me very tired.

The Palmer raids were begun in response to anarchist violence against American citizens -culminating in an attack on the residence of the Attorney General, the real driving force behind the operation, who was named Palmer, not Hoover. They were not started as an anti-communist roundup. Even later, the anti-communist elements were often a cover to go after trade unionists and other undesirable radicals, even Marxists in conflict with what became the Communist Party,U.S.A. At any rate, the events of 1919-1920 could hardly be considered as contributing to the Cold War-otherwise the major logistic force of the Red Army would never have left the American factories that built it. The American Cold War policy was in response to Soviet expansionism that only became apparent to the Roosevelt-Truman administrations after Stalin claimed that the Lublin Polish group was the genuine government of the Polish state-and put them into power in ” liberated” Poland. Before that time the naive views of Henry Wallace in regards to ” Uncle Joe” were much more prominent and respected in the State Department than anything coming from Hoover. Sorry, I get my information from recognized academic historians and their works, not from sources published by vanity press companies.

H.P. Albarelli Jr.,I understand your points and accept your position now.Oswald indeed was in Mexico, now the real question becomes: Why were impostors following in his wake?

“A symbol of the American way, our liberal concession is the existence in our midst of a minority group whose influence and membership is very limited and whose dangerous tendencies are sufficiently controlled by special government agents.The communist party U.S.A. bears little resemblance to their Russian counterparts, but by allowing them to operate and even supporting their right to speak, we maintain a tremendous sign of our strength and liberalism; harassment of their party newspaper, their leaders, and advocates is treachery to our basic principles of freedom of speech and press.Their views no matter how misguided, no matter how much the Russians take advantage of them, must be allowed to be aired. After all, communist U.S.A. have existed for 40 years and they are still a pitiful group of radical. (sic).”~Lee Harvey Oswald

Warren Commission Hearings, Exhibit 102, Vol. 16, pp. 441-442 – handwritten notes for a late August 1963 presentation by Lee Harvey Oswald at the Jesuit seminary attended by his cousin Eugene Murret. These notes were later transcribed into printed text by the Warren Commission.http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/State_Secret_Chapter5\\][//

1. A meeting was held in General Carter’s office on 29 November 1963 to discuss the subject program. Those present, in addition to General Carter, were Messrs. Helms, Kirkpatrick, xxxxxxxx, Gottlieb and Earman. The main thrust of the discussion was the testing of certain drugs on unwitting U.S. citizens. Dr. Gottlieb gave a brief history of the MKULTRA program which was not in any way at variance with the IG report of August 1963 on this subject.

2. Messrs. Gottlieb and xxxxxxxx argued for the continuation of unwitting testing, using as the principal point that controlled testing cannot be depended upon for accurate results. General Carter, Mr. Kirkpatrick, and I do not disagree with this point. We also accept the necessity for having a “stable of drugs” on the shelf and the requirement for continued research and development of drugs — not only for possible operational use but also to give CIA insight on the state of the art in this field and in particular to alert us to what the opposition is or might be expected to do in the R&D and employment of drugs.

3. xxxxxxxxxx noted that there was no disagreement with the recommendations of the IG survey on MKULTRA with the exception of the unwitting testing problem. In response to a query from General Carter, he stated that since the IG report such testing has been held in abeyance.

4. General Carter made it clear that he understood the necessity for research and development of all types of drugs, to include their testing. However, he was troubled ty the “unwitting aspect”. This led to a brief discussion on the possibility of unwitting tests on foreign nationals, but according to xxxxxxxx this had been ruled out as a result of several conversations he recently had with senior chiefs of stations — too dangerous and the lack of controlled facilities. (This seemed an odd conclusion to me since the same dangers exist in the U.S. and from what we were able to find out during our survey, the facilities we have for uncontrolled testing leave much to be desired — I made a point of this.)

5. After further discussion, it was agreed:

a. That the charter of MKULTRA would be revised along the lines recommended in the IG Survey.b. The procedures for testing drugs are to be reviewed and new alternative proposals submitted.

c. If it is concluded by the DD/P that unwitting testing on American citizens must be continued to operationally prove out these drugs, it may become necessary to place this problem before the Director for a decision.

6. I made the point that the IG survey had found other problems with the MKULTRA program in addition to the unwitting testing, but stated if the charter is rewritten along the lines recommended, I believe these problems would be corrected.

7. NOTE: the IG Survey of MKULTRA was handed to xxxxxxxx after the meeting for his use in redrafting the charter.

General Carter was presumably LGEN Marshall Sylvester Carter, who was Deputy Director of Intelligence from 1962 to 1965. I take it DCI McCone did not attend the meeting. Anybody have any idea who XXXXDXXX might be?

Yes, Gerald this is the Earman memo, but it has no relationship at all to ARTICHOKE or the Kennedy assassination, as I think you claimed above.ARTICHOKE teams dispatched to the Far East used double agents and foreign nationals as subjects. Their names would mean nothing here. Plus the “disposal problem” rendered more useless or dead afterwards. The names of the personnel and physicians used would mean a lot more. A couple of these fellows were used in Mexico City in ’62 and ’63. Those names are in several articles of mine placed somewhere on the net; try Truthout.com for a few articles.I spent about 11 years researching ARTICHOKE and fought hard for about 350 documents related to the program. It had no connection to MK/ULTRA or the HEF, which Leslie writes aptly about above. HEF was also active in Mexico with RFK somewhat involved. A very convoluted and strange saga indeed…

H.P. Albarelli, I doubt there is anything new to you here, but I would be interested in your assessment of David Price’s analysis. (My ‘apt’ references to HEF were from memory so they need cleaning up a bit as well):

The HEF was initially The Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology est. 1954 – one year after LHO’s experience at Youth House. Surely these projects did not spring from whole cloth nor would Dulles have approved funding unless research was already in play to convince him. Also in 1953, “ . . .Richard Helms provided Dr Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA’s Technical Services Divisions with $25 million in funds between 1953 and 1963 for MK-Ultra projects.”

Excerpts:“The Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology (SIHE) was a CIA funding front which provided grants to social scientists and medical researchers investigating questions of interest to the MK-Ultra program (see Price 1998, Marks 1979, HEF 1963). The Society was founded in 1954 in New York by Harold G. Wolff, MD, . . . personally recruited by Allen Dulles to direct the Society’s covertly funded programmes to identify effective methods of persuasion and interrogation . . .

. . . But the public face of Human Ecology was that of a paragon of respectable mainstream research [Mrs. Adolf Berle and her husband among others]: the 1961 directory of the Encyclopedia of Associations described the foundation as one that: ‘stimulates and supports studies of man’s adaptation to the complex aspects of his environment. …

. . . There are many elements of Human Ecology-funded research whose articulation with CIA needs is still poorly understood. For example, the funded bioelectrics research, or programmes establishing psychiatric scales, or group psychology studies may have been incorporated into the CIA’s secret research on interrogation, or they may merely have provided an air of legitimacy for the foundation – obviously, psychiatric scales could be useful instruments for interrogators gauging interrogation subjects’ mental health and responses. Questions remain concerning what the Human Ecology Fund’s interest was in funding Dr Beatrice Berle’s research on the impact of illness on families in Harlem (HEF 1963). It may simply be that the Fund was providing a Board member’s spouse with a nepotistic kickback unrelated to MK-Ultra’s desires (Berle was the wife of HEF Board member, educator, diplomat and cold warrior Adolf Berle), but given the CIA’s record of experimental abuse of prisoners and low-ranking soldiers (Biderman and Zimmer 1961, Marks 1979), we may justifiably wonder what their interest in other relatively disempowered and poor populations may have been.”

Wolff wasn’t the founder of HEF. Only listed as such. HEF had nothing to do w/ Youth House, nor did MK/ULTRA. Nor was HEF connected to MK/ULTRA in any way.MK/ULTRA was strictly a research-based program with about 150 sub-projects. ARTICHOKE was an operational program of which Gottleib knew little about.[My opinion is that Oswald had no direct or indirect relationship at all to MK/ULTRA.] The Price material covers only what is available to the public.Dulles authorized MK/ULTRA not Helms.There was some crossover between HEF and ARTICHOKE.Fort Detrick played a varying role in ARTICHOKE and some HEF projects.HEF funded a number of projects outside the U.S.

HP Albarelli, “The Price material covers only what is available to the public.” Do you mean that he would need to FOIA documents to have a more thorough understanding? (And if Helms destroyed a majority of the MKU files, how do we know what is true, what is speculation, and what has been expunged from the record including the role of Youth House in the study of adolescent behaviour?

Am I misreading or reading too much into the files represented here?from the National Security Archive at GWU:Subproject 48: MKULTRA: HEF Cornell Relationship: Artichoke Team Proposals and ReportsSubproject 81: MKULTRA: Cornell–Extension of Hinkle–Wolf

Maybe I’m missing the significance of your nuance, that having studied this for years you recognize there were distinct edges to each project. To me, they appear to bleed into one another.

and are you disputing John Marks’ claims: here,“The MKULTRA men moved quickly to turn the Society into an entity that looked and acted like a legitimate foundation. First they smoothed over the ragged covert edges. Out came the bugs and safes so dear to Morse Allen and company. The new crew even made some effort (largely unsuccessful) to attract non-CIA funds. The biggest change, however, was the Cornell professors now had to deal with Agency representatives who were scientists and who had strong ideas of their own on research questions. Up to this point, the Cornellians had been able to keep the CIA’s involvement within bounds acceptable to them. While Harold Wolff never ceased wanting to explore the furthest reaches of behavior control, his colleagues were wary of going on to the outer limits—at least under Cornell cover.”

and here,“Accordingly, in 1956, Sid Gottlieb approved a $74,000 project to have the Human Ecology Society study the factors that caused men to defect from their countries and cooperate with foreign governments. MKULTRA officials reasoned that if they could understand what made old turncoats tick, it might help them entice new ones . . “

Leslie, I doubt that a FOIA would produce much. Yes, I’m disagreeing with what Marks wrote, with the benefit of having viewed ample documentation released or obtained after John wrote his book.I suspect John would agree if he were to review the same.There was some melding of general objectives but also clear distinctions between the programs and very clear lines of authority that precluded other divisions [i.e. TSD]. Not easy to cover in the limited space here. I too have spent about 14 years looking at HEF, MK/ULTRA, ARTICHOKE, and other related projects.

HP Albarelli, I do wonder if establishing clear distinctions and clear lines of authority was a deliberate method to protect each project should others under the same umbrella be exposed. (that sounds conspiratorial.) I also wonder if we legitimize the operation by discussing it so rationally; as investigative reporter Debby Sharp said back in the early ’80’s; these people should be (or should have been) tracked down and charged with crimes.

It appears you know John Marks personally. Do you know if he plans to update his own work?

It was that and other mechanisms at work. CIA was and is huge bureaucracy. There was considerable friction between the various divisions that ran mind alteration projects, and there were major differences in objectives.I spoke with and communicated with Marks for my Olson book. I got the impression that he has no plans for a revision, but best to ask him that. I’m not familiar with Debby Sharp; is she related to you. Best to e-mail me if we are to have in-depth discussions.

H.P. Albarelli Jr. You protest too much,its interesting and revealing that you and Photon are working hand in hand to discredit any revelations posted on this topic.Col Pash expertice other then planning assassinations was enhanced interogation of scientist and communist I suggest anyone interested in assassination read Pash’s testimony at Church Hearings for all the LIES and Truths he told, and compare it to FOIA CIA document about his employment at CIA and Army and his employment from 1957 to July 1963 as civilian chief for Counterintelligence of Soviet Union and Block Allso look at missing period of 1957 to 1975 on his papers at Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace Stanford,

“I have no idea what a ‘MK zombie’is… is that in the science books?”~H.P. Albarelli Jr

“Zombie” in Haitian folklore is an animated corpse raised by magical means, such as witchcraft. It is metaphor and actually began as metaphor historically as it was told as such by the Haitian leader of a colony of runaway slaves from the US mainland to describe the mentality of a slave that had acquiesced his soul and mind to “the master” and become as the living dead in the process.

I use the term in the same manner of allegorical terminology to describe those lost in the delusions of a synthetic paradigm created by the modern Public Relations Regime, and have coined the term TVZombie to describe such consumers of indoctrination.

So “zombie” is a useful term in many aspects in defining those who have had their humanity and consciousness compromised by the neuromancy of modern psychological propaganda and perception manipulation.

“Science fiction” … yes, in a sense it’s all science fiction; in the aspect that it is a fictitious paradigm created by technology and science.\\][//

Willy Whitten i too believe that Sirhan was a mind controled Patsy and LHO in my mind fits that profile but its difficult to get ones head around that subject.Its interesting too know that Sirhan and LHO favoret book was Power Of Positive Thinking Some experts claim it to be primer for Self Hypnosis.

It’s difficult to answer your question as it is so garbled, but the Japanese bio-chem science was gathered up by a team from Camp Detrick after the war; according to those Detrick men no Japanese scientists were recruited for work in the U.S. There has been rumors for years that Ishii came to the U.S. but he denied this as did FOI officers at Detrick.

A file from Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters states that the investigation of Unit 731 was “under direct Joint Chiefs of Staff order.” The document continues, “The utmost secrecy is essential in order to protect the interests of the United States and to guard against embarrassment.”

One more Canadian connection to MKULTRA http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/weyburn-mental-hospitalMy Aunt was commited to this Saskatchewan Mental Hospital many times. I have no idea if Dr. Humphrey Osmond treated her but she kept getting worse each time and finally commited Suicide in early sixties if i remember right

H.P. Albarelli Jr. I must thank you because of your role as Devals Advocate i did further research on Pash,Unit 731 and Japanese defeat of Chinese Communist Guerrillas in Manchurea and i have made very important discovery on roots of Pash’s PB/7.

The third was to implant durable and operationally useful post-hypnotic suggestions, to make a personal responsive to commands.Jeff the project in Mexico was called MINDBENDER but what do you get when you googlehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOciXH9RVg4I know what LHO favoret book was but what was his favoret music?

Guy Banister Father Figure and reinforced LHO fantice about TV’s I led three lives and I was a communist for FBI.

David Ferrie might have hypnotized LHO IN 1955 and ID him as easy subject to manipulate.

Albert Osborne RELIGIOUS CON-ARTIST and intelligence asset (he did the imposable by recieving Canadian Passport same day he aplied on Oct 10 1963 in NO)

Buell Wesley Frazier Trained LHO on his first day at work at TSBDdispite having worked at TSBD less then 3 weeks,gave LHO free transportation starting 2 days after they met. On Nov. 22 ate his lunch in basement and after assassination went back to basement, Controles for electrical are in basement and best way of escape unseen is basement. Frazier and Ofstein military career are open for question?

gerald campeau: “Buell Wesley Frazier Trained LHO on his first day at work at TSBDdispite having worked at TSBD less then 3 weeks,gave LHO free transportation starting 2 days after they met. On Nov. 22 ate his lunch in basement and after assassination went back to basement, Controles for electrical are in basement and best way of escape unseen is basement. Frazier and Ofstein military career are open for question?”

Thanks for this information. Can you identify the source for this specific info on Frazier? I know that he and his sister lived in Huntsville, TX at one time and that he relocated to Irving the summer of 1963. I have viewed a number of the videos of interviews with him and he’s very convincing; also he was questioned in the hours after the assassination which could indicate he was an unknown entity .. however “right place at the right time” is an understatement. Also, do you know if he was hired under the auspices of the depository business or the owner of the building? I’ve never been clear whether Roy Truly was on the payroll of Byrd or of Cason and Campbell? And did Frazier go through the Texas Employment Agency, or did he too meet someone who knew someone?

leslie I miss-spoke Frazier started work on Friday Sep. 13 OSWALD Started work on Wed Oct 16 and Frazier drove him to Paine home on his birtnday Oct 18. Most of my info is from his testimony Frazier, Buell Wesley WC Testimony 1, 2, Affidavit, Shaw trial testimony Employee, TSBD and neighbour of the Paines in Irving, Tex. http://jfkassassination.net/russ/wit.htmI found some info from his 2 terms in Army and the fact that he stayed out of harms way in Viet Nam time is tellingOfstein did lie and can be proven by LHO earnings along with UI records that have a story in it selve Roy Truly was part owner of book business and it would be interesting how and who payed for floor laying and improvments to building; It is my understanding that Truly spoke to no one after assassination about the lead up JFK murder.

gerald, theory: if there was a conspiracy, Frazier and Truly were essential bookends in the positioning of Oswald as the patsy. Frazier had to be employed at the depository and Truly had to identify Oswald as missing from the depository building in the immediate aftermath. Events in between that affected Oswald were a matter of alignment in a timely fashion, and regardless of motive Linnie Randle and Ruth Paine played the pivotal role.

According to testimony, Truly worked for the depository since 1934, he was seconded to North American Aviation during WWII, and returned to the depository operation following his stint with that CA defense contractor.

Truly was not employed by DH Byrd, owner of the building but rather Jack Charles Cason and O.V. Campbell who leased the building at 411 Elm from Byrd. Truly was a director of the depository business but I suspect if any significant ownership was based on sweat equity. As owner of the building at 411 Elm, Byrd investments would have been responsible for improvements unless otherwise specified in the lease agreement with TSBD so we don’t know for certain who was paying for the floor laying but I’m going to guess Byrd and his wife Mattie Caruth Byrd, daughter of Dallas’ Caruth real estate dynasty.

Frazier’s presence in the basement appears to have been his pattern; however that doesn’t mean the pattern was not established for a purpose. In my view he comes across very genuine in his interviews. I’ve never seen Roy Truly interviewed. Their testimonies have never come under close scrutiny on this site yet testimony of a number of other key witnesses has been either studiously dissected and disputed, or dismissed altogether. Why is that?

leslie, One more piece of puzzel is the Randle Famialy,Linnie Randle Husband Bill checked in at Motal in Austan Tx night of 22

Motel owner Mrs John O Thompson phoned the Austin FBI office on November 23 to inform them that Randle had arrived at about 7:00pm the previous day with a man named Berry J Caster driving a Chevy pick up. The report goes on to say, “they both claimed to be employees of the Irving Counter Top Company”, and that he had a “personal acquaintanceship” with Oswald, the extent of which was not discussed.According to Mrs Thompson, Randle said his wife worked at the same building as Oswald, and also told her of rumors that had circulated in Dallas that Kennedy would be shot when he came “on account of the Veteran’s Administration Offices being moved out of Dallas”. It is true that Vets office was moved to Waco because of discrimination in Dallas. Whats important here is Jack Cason, was the long-time head of the local American Legion post Bills brother was Mayor of Irving at one time. Bill and Linnie Mae once lived across the St. from Ruth latter moveing into Bill’s Fathers rather nice 2 bath house at end of block.Its my gut feeling that both Truly and Frazier were unwitting conspirators in parts they played.

In 1976 Cleveland Cram, the former Chief of Station in the Western Hemisphere, met Ted Shackley and George T. Kalaris at a cocktail party in Washington. Kalaris, who had replaced Angleton as Chief of Counterintelligence, asked Cram if he would like to come back to work. Cram was told that the CIA wanted a study done of Angleton’s reign from 1954 to 1974. “Find out what in hell happened. What were these guys doing.” (1)

Cram took the assignment and was given access to all CIA documents on covert operations. The study took six years to complete. In one section, Cram looks at the reliability of information found in books about the American and British intelligence agencies. Cram praises certain authors for writing accurate accounts of these covert activities. He is especially complimentary about the books written by David C. Martin, the author of Wilderness of Mirrors (1980), Tom Mangold the author of Cold Warrior (1991) and David Wise the author of Molehunt (1992). Cram points out that these authors managed to persuade former CIA officers to tell the truth about their activities. In some cases, they were even given classified documents.

Cram is highly critical of the work of Edward J. Epstein, the author of Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald (1978). Cram makes it clear that Epstein, working with James Jesus Angleton, was part of a disinformation campaign. Cram writes: “Edward J. Epstein’s Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald provided enormous stimulus to the deception thesis by suggesting that Yuri Nosenko, a Soviet defector, had been sent by the KGB to provide a cover story for Lee Harvey Oswald, who the book alleged was a KGB agent…. Epstein’s suggested that Nosenko’s defection from the KGB was in reality a mission to provide a cover story for Oswald, which would absolve the Soviet Government of complicity in the assassination of President Kennedy.” (2)

Cram is equally dismissive of Epstein’s book, Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the CIA (1989): “Like Legend, it is propaganda for Angleton and essentially dishonest. The errors are too many to document here… In summary, this is one of many bad books inspired by Angleton after his dismissal that have little basis in fact. An interview with Epstein in Vanity Fair magazine in May 1989 suggests he too has had second thoughts about Angleton and even about Golitsyn, his pet defector. Epstein admitted that Golitsyn shaped Angleton’s views and possibly was a liar.” (3)

Cleveland Cram investigation lasted six years. According to David Wise “The names of the mole suspects were considered so secret that their files were kept in locked safes in yet another vault directly across from Angleton’s office… Cram… produced twelve legal-sized volumes, each three hundred to four hundred pages. Cram’s approximately four-thousand-page study has never been declassified. It remains locked in the CIA’s vaults.” (4) However, a 71 page report, Of Moles and Molehunters: A Review of Counterintelligence Literature, was declassified in 2003. The CIA have a copy of it on their website:

This 22 January 1954 CIA memo shows that the Agency also pondered using hypnotized assassination. The report’s central question was, “Can an individual of [redacted] descent be made to perform an act of attempted assassination involuntarily under the influence of ARTICHOKE?” According to a subsequent CIA report, “ARTICHOKE is the Agency cryptonym for the study and/or use of ‘special’ interrogation methods that have been known to include the use of drugs and chemicals, hypnosis, and ‘total isolation,’ a form of psychological harassment.”